Although this isn't the first of the Anne Perry novels by a long way, it's the first one I've read and i liked it. It features Pitt, a Victorian police inspector who has testified at a murder trial and whose testimony manages to help get the man convicted. He was guilty but there didn't seem to be any motive. Pitt gets demoted and sent to the east end of London to try to keep an eye on possible anarchist conspirators.

Meanwhile, his coworker is trying to unravel another mystery with the help of Pitt's kitchen maid and Pitt's wife. It all seems unconnected but it is in the end. It even draws in a possibly solution to the identity of Jack the Ripper who had terrorized the East End four years before the timeline of this book. ( )

I don't usually care for historical fiction, even though I do not know much about the history, I really enjoyed this book. The Story was about Thomas Pitt, a detective in London, who caught and convicted a murderer. However this murderer had friends in high places (the Inner Circle) who punished Pitt by forcing him to step down from his position on Bow street and work, as well as live, in the poor side of town. His Wife, maid, and coworker all work together to try and understand why the murder was committed and thereby get Pitt reinstated. The Plot is very involved and leads to republican conspiracy, Monarchy cover-ups and even Jack the Ripper. The thing I liked most about this book was the budding relationship between Gracie (the maid) and Tellman (the detective). All of the characters are memorable and love-able. I think I will read more of this series. ( )

A nice, comfortable read. Anne Perry writes in a style that is much like an afghan that belonged to your grandmother and now you. It sort of wraps around me, is familiar and nonthreatening and when I close my eyes, I can really see the scene she has created (just like when I can see my granny tucking me in with the afghan). But her scary moments aren't so scary I couldn't sleep afterward. These are familiar characters in a familiar setting (Thomas Pitt and family in Victorian London). There were twists and turns, especially in the major plot (it's no accident it's titled _The Whitechapel Conspiracy_, and that's all the spoiler you'll get from me). But I enjoyed the twists and turns in the subplots. These are characters that I've grown close to through their previous books, and to see them grow and watch as their lives take them to unexpected places - that's a real treat and the author handled it quite well. This was just the thing to get me through a day of being sick in bed. ( )

Wikipedia in English

After a less-than-impressive outing with the more-turgid-than-tense Half Moon Street, Anne Perry is back on familiar--and entertaining-- turf with The Whitechapel Conspiracy. As if apologizing for their last efforts, the whole Victorian crew seems thankfully less concerned with respecting social mores than with ratcheting up the pressure in a nicely paced political-conspiracy potboiler.

For Inspector Thomas Pitt, doing one's job can have unpleasant consequences. When his testimony sends distinguished soldier John Adinett to the gallows for the murder of Martin Fetters, traveler and antiquarian, Adinett's friends (members of the Inner Circle, "those men who had secret loyalties which superseded every other honor or pledge") ensure that Pitt loses his command of the Bow Street station. He is forced to leave his family and take up an undercover existence in the slum district of Spitalfields, chasing anarchists (though he feels he might as well be chasing his own tail). But when his wife, Charlotte, their maid, Gracie, and her would-be suitor, Sergeant Tellman, apply themselves to the task of restoring Pitt's good name, they uncover an anarchist's conspiracy that dwarfs even Guy Fawkes's Gunpowder Plot. The secrets and lies of respected men lurking in the halls of power, who will stop at nothing short of abolishing the monarchy, form the backdrop for the trio's frantic investigations. To top everything off, Perry throws in a marvelously effective subplot--but to divulge how Jack the Ripper figures into the narrative would be to spoil a highly entertaining read.

The novel has its flaws; Charlotte's great-aunt Vespasia seems less the dynamic character she has been throughout the series than a mouthpiece of mourning for the waves of change. Yes, the reader is tempted to say, the potential downfall of the British monarchy would no doubt be painful and unspeakably unsettling for those who respect Victoria and her forebears--but must one natter endlessly on about it? Better to let the whole shebang go gracefully into that good night. No fears for contemporary Victorian-philes, though; with Thomas and Charlotte around, who could doubt that the monarchy will live to fight another day? --Kelly Flynn

"It is spring, 1892. Queen Victoria persists in her life of self-absorbed seclusion. The Prince of Wales outrages decent people with his mistresses and profligate ways. The grisly killings of Whitechapel prostitutes by a man dubbed Jack the Ripper remain a frightening enigma. And in a packed Old Bailey courtroom, distinguished soldier John Adinett is sentenced to hang for the inexplicable murder of his friend, Martin Fetters.""Though Thomas Pitt should receive praise for providing key testimony in the Fetters investigation, Adinett's powerful friends of the secretive inner circle make sure he is vilified instead. Thus Pitt is suddenly relieved of his Bow Street command and reassigned to the clandestine Special Branch in the dangerous East End. There he must investigate alleged anarchist plots, working undercover and living, far from his family, in Whitechapel, one of the area's worst slums. His allies are few - among them clever Charlotte and intrepid Gracie, the maid who knows the neighborhood and can maneuver it without raising eyebrows. But neither of them anticipates the horrors soon to be revealed."--BOOK JACKET.… (more)